Small Tips, Big Wisdom

(by process)

April 21, 2014        Cloudy        Monday

Being Friendly to Your Appetite and to the Environment

Recently, I’ve got some tips for making food friendly to our appetite and to the environment.

The first tip concerns cauliflowers. We know that pesticide residue on cauliflowers is considerable. The traditional way to remove pesticide residue on vegetables is to soak the vegetable in water for half an hour. Some people will add some salt to the water because they believe that this will help remove the pesticide residue more effectively. However, as the pesticide has been upgraded, it is harder to remove pesticide residue simply with water. Besides, soaking vegetables with salty water for a long time will damage the nutrition in the vegetable. Another way people often use to remove pesticide residue on cauliflowers is to cut the cauliflower into pieces and boil the pieces for about 5 minutes, then the pesticide residue is melted into the water. Then get them out and sir-fry them with oil. However, in that way, because of the cuts, the vitamins in the cauliflower will be melted into the water, which will be discarded, resulting in a waste of nutrition. Now I have a new idea. Hold the stem of cauliflower and soak the whole top of the cauliflower into boiling water. Keep turning the cauliflower to make sure that every side is boiled. Five minute later, take it out, cut the cauliflower into pieces and stir-fry them with oil. In this way, most of the pesticide residue is removed and most of the nutrition is kept. Meanwhile, less water is used, which is environmentally friendly.

The second tip concerns the cooking of rice. Usually, people eat pure white rice and start cooking rice right after it is measured and washed. If you do that, you will lose the opportunity to taste what could have been more delicious. Now let me show you the better way. Use a high-pressure pot. Get the required amount of white rice together with a handful of other grains such as black rice or red rice or brown rice or buckwheat or sorghum and wash it once. Then add the right amount of clean water to the pot of rice. Soak the rice for half an hour and start cooking. First use gentle heat for five minutes, then use high heat. When the pressure valve rises or whistles, switch to gentle heat again. Continue to cook for another five minutes, then turn off the heat. When the pressure is completely released, open the pot and you’ll get the most delicious and nutritious rice in the world. Besides, as gentle heat is used most of the time, energy is saved, which is environmentally friendly.